Matthew Liska
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Black holes and neutron stars pull in surrounding gas, which forms a spinning disk called an accretion disk. As the gas falls in, it heats up and can shine brightly or launch jets.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
black holes
neutron stars
accretion disks
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Simulate super-Eddington accretion onto intermediate-mass black holes with radiative GRMHD models, varying accretion rate, magnetic field strength and misalignment between black hole spin and disk.
- Model accreting neutron stars with different magnetic dipole strengths and orientations, then compare them with black hole models to tell apart the possible engines of ultraluminous X-ray sources.
- Build a GRMHD simulation library of tilted, warped accretion disks with two-temperature plasma and radiative cooling, and test whether warps form nozzle shocks around spinning black holes.
- Search Event Horizon Telescope data for disk warping by comparing it with simulations and reconstructing images with a dictionary learning algorithm trained on simulations.
More about the research
This research uses large computer simulations to understand how these disks behave near compact objects. It then compares the simulations with what telescopes actually see. Both projects use GRMHD simulations (general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics), which model magnetized gas moving in the strong gravity described by Einstein's theory. The simulations include radiation and a plasma in which electrons and ions have different temperatures.
Why it matters
This work could help astronomers work out what powers the brightest X-ray sources in galaxies, whether neutron stars or intermediate-mass black holes, and how gas and jets behave around supermassive black holes. Open simulation libraries and sharper image reconstruction for the Event Horizon Telescope would give the astrophysics community direct tools for interpreting observations of black holes and neutron stars.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Philip Hopkins
California Institute of Technology, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Develop new theoretical models of gas inflow onto supermassive black holes, in which strong magnetic fields dominate the accretion disk and change its behavior.
Antonios Tsokaros
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Develop an open-source general relativistic initial data code, based on the COCAL (Compact Object CALculator) code, that lets users set up starting conditions for magnetized neutron stars and black holes, alone or in binaries.
Rodolfo Barniol Duran
California State University-Sacramento, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Build "meter-to-parsec" numerical simulations that follow neutron star–neutron star and neutron star–black hole mergers from the pre-merger state to the regions where observed light is produced.
The school
Georgia Institute of Technology: 50 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 572 research doctorates a year.
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